Reflection from Culture Contact

ASL 103

Rick Mangan

Culture Contact

Emily Richins

3/16/18

        Throughout my ASL experience, I have been blessed to have deaf culture contact throughout it. This quarter was the first time experiencing a required amount of time of culture contact as an assignment. My poor planning and my procrastination due, to the overwhelming amount of work this would take, meant I was only able to get 3 hours in. although I didn’t get all the hours, I still learned a lot, from trying to take as much as possible out of the situation. In addition, I am very familiar with the normal flow of church meetings and learned how they coped and changed certain things to fit the deaf world.

        At the deaf ward, the meetings were split up into 3 chunks about an hour each. In the first hour, it was a classical music, prayer, sacrament, speakers, etc.  The main difference from my normal church meetings was the prayers and songs. A little background, music is a heavy part in our church, so it makes sense they didn’t get rid of the songs altogether. Instead they had a video that played the music and had a translator signing along to the song. When the videos weren’t working, They had a piano player and an interpreter who was familiar with the song come up and produce a live version of the song. It was interesting that the interpretations with the same word between songs changed depending on the song, and tempo. In the first song hallelujah, was a clap turning into celebrate rising higher than normal. Where as the second one just had hallelujah as a short smooth transition to the next sign. Also in prayer, normally to be respectful we fold our arms, or clasp our hands, bow our heads, and close our eyes. Instead the volunteer will bow their head and close their eyes, and sign keeping their signs as contained as possible while everyone else watches with arms folded.